


IT comes and goes

by ToshiChan



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Arguing, Brief Mention of Violence, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, brief mentions of child neglect and bullying, maybe a bit ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 10:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12167118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToshiChan/pseuds/ToshiChan
Summary: IT came and IT went but IT left behind a whole host of problems in Its wake. Specifically two traumatised boys, too stubborn to try and let the other one help him.IT came and IT went and nothing will ever be the same.





	IT comes and goes

_Drops of water fell rhythmically to the ground to create a constant ‘pitter patter’ as the club crept through the pipes. Shadows flickered under the beam of their flashlights and their footsteps echoed eerily as they plodded through the dirty water. Despite how small and cramped the tunnels were, they all felt strong and brave. Sure, one was missing from their numbers but soon everything would be alright again. They were going to find and rescue Beverly. They had weapons. They were prepared. Nothing was going to go wrong._

_Eddie was sure of that, for once._

_Too many things had gone wrong throughout the summer. Things had to go right for once. Everything was coming to an end. They had each other and that was the clown’s weakness. They were going to come out victorious. Eddie felt confident. He’d stood up to his mother today and he’d thrown his medication away in a fit of anger. His lungs sucked in air easily despite the murky taste that mingled with it. He felt free, free from everything._

_Eddie turned back to smile at his friends and gasped._

_Stan was bleeding from his face. The rivets matted his hair together in clumps and his lips were stained a dark red. It looked like someone with claws had dug them into his cheeks and dragged down viciously._

_“Stan!” Eddie cried, stumbling to a halt._

_“What’s wrong?” Stan smile blankly. “You noticed me for once. That’s nice of you.”_

_“Stan?”_

_“Leave Stan alone.” Mike said flippantly. “We don’t have time to play around. Come on Eddie.”_

_“But Stan’s bleeding.” Eddie protested._

_“No he’s not.” Mike laughed, readying his stick. “Do you need glasses too?”_

Too?

_Ben patted Eddie on the shoulder comfortingly. “Stan’s fine, Eddie. We all are.”_

_“Beverly’s not.” Eddie pointed out. The fear was rising fast in him now and the courage he’d felt only seconds before was draining away._

_“Whadda you mean I’m not?”_

_Eddie cast his flashlight out, the beam jiggling violently as his shaking hand struggled to steady itself._

_“Who said that?” He cried._

_“Me, stupid.” Beverly loomed out of the darkness, fiery curls glowing under the light of the torch. “Don’t tell me that dumb clown’s getting to you again.”_

_“But we’re coming down here to rescue you.” Eddie protested, suddenly confused. “Bill called us. He said you were taken.”_

_“I n-never said t-t-that.” Bill piped up. “We’re down here to s-s-save Georgie.”_

_“What’s going on?” Eddie took a step away from his friends. “Is this a trick? Are you illusions?”_

_“We’re as real as we can be.” Ben laughed, long and loud. The sound bounced through the tunnels._

_Eddie took another step back. Something wasn’t right. Someone_ was _missing! But it wasn’t Beverly. She was standing between Ben and Bill, clutching a bloodied axe that Eddie didn't like the look of. And Mike and Stan were standing side by side, still seemingly ignorant to Stan’s bloody face. There was a gap amongst them, unnoticed by the others as though it has just been vacated._

_“Richie!” Eddie screamed as it finally struck him. “Guys! Where’s Richie?”_

_As if his friend’s name had been the start of a trap just waiting to be set off, the tunnels swirled around them like water. Eddie nearly lost his balance as the floor shifted and groaned. The roof warped and twisted until suddenly they weren’t in the tunnels anymore. Instead, they were standing in a large space with a high roof and ankle deep water. A tower of childish junk rose teetering towards the sky and around it floated…_

_Bodies._

_“Where’s Richie?” Eddie cried again, too scared for his friend to voice his slight amazement  and massive horror at the change of scenery._

_“You’ll float too.” Mike stared up at the roof in wonder._

_“Huh?”_

_“We all float down here.” Stan reached out with bloody fingertips._

_“Get away from me.” Eddie swung his cast around as though it was an effective weapon against iron spikes and a fucking gun._

_“If you join us…” Ben begun._

_“…you’ll float too.” Beverly finished. They stepped towards in alarmingly synchronisation._

_“Stay back!”_

_“Join me.” Bill said, voice stutter free. “I’m so hungry. Join me. Join Richie. Float with us.”_

_Eddie stared up at the hundreds of bodies again and that’s when he saw it._

_Richie was floating too, closer to the ground than the others. His eyes behind his glasses were clouded over and he appeared to be quite dead._

_“No!” Eddie cried, leaping into the air in an attempt to grab Richie’s feet and falling short. “Let him go! Let my friend go!”_

_“It’s too late for him.” Bill’s smile grew and grew until it became apparent that his face was growing with it. Eddie’s friends circled around their leader, eyes clouding over just like Richie’s as they let their heads fall back and surrendered to the sky._

_“You’ll float too…”_

_“You’ll float too.”_

_“You’ll float too!”_

_Bill was long gone now and the clown took his place. A bloody red smile stretched over white skin. Orange hair seemed to signal danger. Glowing eyes pierced the darkness like a bullet. Gloved hands reached out for Eddie. Above him, Ritchie began to drift higher and higher, away from him. He almost looked as though he was smiling. He was happy to be gone. He was happy to be leaving Eddie._

_“YOU’LL FLOAT TOO!”_

“NO!”

POP!

The world exploded in red and Eddie fell.

He fell down

 Down

 

  Down

 

   Down

 

    Down

 

     Down

 

      Down

 

       Down

 

        Down

 

         Down

 

          Down

 

And when he landed, the ground beneath him was soft and there were arms wrapped around him.

“Wake up Eds, you’re having a nightmare.”

_You’ll float too!_

Eddie’s eyes snapped open and he screamed. He reacted without thinking, snapping his arm around and nailing the person pinning him down in the head. The person fell back with a screech of pain and Eddie was free. He sat up and fumbled for a source of light. His fingers found the switch for a nearby lamp and he flicked it on hastily.

“What the fuck was that for?” Richie groaned. His glasses were sitting askew on his face thanks to the hit and his makeshift pyjamas (a large shirt and baggy shorts) were somewhat ruffled.

“You scared me, asshole.” Eddie panted, trying to catch his breath. For a minute, he had no idea where he was. Was this another illusion conjured up by IT? Would Richie crumble to dust if he touched him?

“You were screaming in your sleep.” Richie said defensively. “Ruined my beauty sleep.”

Eddie looked at the huge bags under Richie’s eyes but decided not to bring them up. Richie wasn’t sleeping at all these days but when Ben had tried to talk to him about it, Richie had thrown a fit and then when that hadn't gotten Ben off his case, a rock. Better to leave things unsaid for now. 

“Where are we?” Eddie asked instead.

“Bill’s house, remember?” Richie’s face was mostly unreadable but there was a hint of something there. Fear? For him? Eddie shook his head to get rid of that thought. Richie wasn’t capable of fear for others, right?

“I do now.” Eddie looked around. He was lying on a mattress on a floor in a familiar looking living room. Around them lay the sleeping bodies of their friends, surprisingly not awakened by the sudden commotion. “Thanks for waking me up, I guess.”

“Mike would kill me if I let you wake him up instead.” Richie shrugged off the thanks as was his way.

“Still.” Eddie lay a hand over his rapidly beating heart and tried to take deep breaths to calm it down.

Awkward silence filled the room, broken only by the breathing of the sleeping members of most the Loser’s club. They’d taken to having multiple sleepovers as the summer continued, finding comfort in each other after everything they’d been through. Still, there were some things that couldn’t really be fixed just yet. Beverly was gone after all, and the hole she left was a gaping wound. Eddie shivered a little from the cold and wrapped his blanket tightly around him. The lamp cast a weird shadow on Richie’s face and suddenly, all Eddie could see was the face from his dream again. Those clouded eyes. That pale skin. He gasped and recoiled. Richie’s fall fell.

“Wanna…wanna talk about it?” He asked, voice oozing with reluctance.

Richie Tozier didn’t do reluctance and he didn’t do hesitation. He let his mouth run freely from his brain and rarely stopped to even consider the consequences his words might bring. He screamed for rock fights and got nailed in the head and tried to steal instruments to play them badly because he felt like it. He did funny voices that made nobody laugh but himself. He told dumb jokes and made rude comments and sneered at the bullies even as he ran from them. Richie Tozier never stopped to think.

But IT had changed that.

“It was just another dumb old dream about the sewers.” Eddie said after a moment. This was a rare moment and even though Richie would probably change the conversation to something more lighthearted soon, Eddie couldn’t find it within himself to let the opportunity pass.

“I’m sensing a but.” Richie didn’t even laugh at his choice of words. Behind his glasses, his eyes were serious.

“But it wasn’t Bev who got taken.” Eddie admitted. “It was you. And I couldn’t rescue you like we rescued Bev. You floated away from me.”

“Don’t!” Richie said sharply. At the sight of Eddie’s shocked expression, he sighed and explained. “Don’t say that word. Makes me…uncomfortable.”

“Right.” The world felt mean and sarcastic leaving his mouth but Richie’s expression didn’t change.

“Dude, it was just a dream.” Richie went on. “I’m here and I’m alright.”

“You don’t have to be.”

Fuck! Eddie cursed the fact that sometimes he didn’t have a filter either, thanks to constantly hanging around the boy with the out of control mouth. He’d told himself he wouldn’t bring up Richie’s obvious problems but here he was, doing it anyway. Curse the stupid nightmare that had rubbed him raw.

“Of course I’m alright. I’m Richie.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sure it does.”

Eddie could tell that Richie was seriously on edge now but he pushed on, regardless of the fact.

“You haven’t slept in weeks, Richie. You couldn’t miss those bags even if you were standing a hundred miles away. You look like a zombie.” Eddie burst out.

“Cool.” Richie cut in.

“No, not cool.” Eddie hissed. “First off, gross. Zombies are walking bags of diseases. Second off, it’s not healthy to miss sleep. You’ll end up collapsing somewhere, maybe in a really dangerous place.”

“So what?” Richie leant back, rubbing at the developing bruise on his face from where Eddie had hit him.

“So what? So what?!” Eddie spluttered. “So you could hurt yourself. Badly. You could even die. You have to fucking sleep sometime.”

“You’re not my mum.” Richie growled.

“And that’s another thing!” Eddie was on a roll now. “You haven’t been home in forever either. Someone told me they saw you in the park at midnight a few days ago. Why won't you go home. Surely what's there isn't as bad as being homeless.”

“Hey.” Richie cut in once more. “Don’t fucking talk about my home life, alright. If I don’t wanna be there then I won’t be, but it’s none of your fucking business.”

“You’re my friend.” Eddie protested, knowing that he’d crossed a line. “It is so my business.”

“What you should be worried about right now is yourself.” Richie folded his arms over his chest. “You’re the one screaming people’s houses down because of nightmares, and jumping every time a door slams.”

“Like you don’t do that too.” Eddie retorted. “Let’s face it, IT fucked us up.”

“Never thought you’d be the first to admit it.” Richie said but his voice was suddenly weary.

“You need to sleep.” Eddie said again, losing his momentum as well. He’d chosen to ignore Richie’s comment for now, focusing on the more pressing issue at hand. “IT’s not going to get you in your sleep.”

“You don’t know that.” Richie curled himself into a ball, resting his head on his knees. He sounded small and scared and that was something that Richie should never sound like.

“IT would’ve come for us now if IT could.” Eddie pointed out.

“Or IT’s biding ITs time and waiting for me instead of going for you guys.” Richie picked at a stray thread in his blanket.

“We killed IT.” The words felt like ash in Eddie’s mouth. “We saw IT fall.”

“There was no body.” Richie stared up at the roof. Eddie knew in that moment that he was thinking of all the other bodies, floating in their eternal sleep. Horrifying visual reminders for everything wicked IT had done during ITs reign of terror.

“IT’s not coming back.” At this point, Eddie was trying to reassure himself more than Richie.

“Monsters always win.” Richie said dully. “I see it in video games all the time. And at home. I’ve seen it. I see it every day.”

Eddie didn’t know what to say to that so he didn’t say anything. Once more, the two sat in silence. It was a far cry from what would have gone down had they woken up at a sleepover before everything went to shit. Richie probably would’ve babbled on at a million miles per hour, calling Eddie every ridiculous name he could think of and making a multitude of ‘your mum’ jokes and laughing at his own wit. Eddie would’ve told him to shut up in return, trying to pinch his arm and retorting when he could.

Things were different now. IT had left behind crumbling pieces of the children IT had found. Beverly was gone. Stan was permanently scarred and scared, as was Ben. Mike’s hands shook whenever he held something that could be used as a weapon. Bill was a crying mess over Georgie. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Still, Eddie wished it would be.   

“I want to help you.” He whispered, wondering if Richie would reply.

He did.

“You can’t.”

Eddie bowed his head and wept silently.

“Hey, don’t cry.” There was a shuffling noise and then Richie was lifting Eddie’s head back up. Their eyes met. 

“Can’t help it.” Eddie sniffed. “I wanna help you. I’ve just learnt how to be brave and being brave means helping people.”

Silence, once more. After the constant screams that haunted him, Eddie should have been glad for silence but right now, he wished Richie would chase it away.

“You’re really cool.”

“Huh?” Eddie’s jaw dropped at the statement. “Where did that come from?”

“You changed.” Richie seemingly ignored him. “When IT came for us, you changed.”

“We all did.” Eddie offered.

“Yeah, but that’s because of what IT did to us. IT changed us. You changed yourself.” Richie reached out as though he wanted to touch Eddie, but recoiled at the last minute. “You stood up to your mum. You threw away your tablets. You went into the sewers and you came out. You were so fucking brave down there.”

“I really wasn’t.” Eddie tried to protest but this time Richie really did touch him, reaching out to slap him softly.

“You fucking were.” There was a hint of laughter in Richie’s voice. “Shut up and take the compliment.”

“Alright, alright.” Eddie leaned back. His eyes drooped closed briefly. “I’m really tired. I’m gonna go back to sleep.”

“Okay.” Richie’s tone gave away nothing. Eddie decided it was worth the risk.

“You should too.”

“Maybe.” Richie hummed.

Eddie smiled to himself. It was better than nothing. He lay back down and flicked off the lamp. The room was plunged into darkness. For a moment, he shuffled around, trying to get comfortable again. He couldn’t hear any sounds coming from Richie’s direction so he assumed that his friend was just sitting there in the darkness.

Then…

THUD

A sudden weight landed itself next to Eddie, brushing against his cast. The injured boy almost screamed in shock but a quiet voice spoke up and stopped him.

“It’s just me, dipshit.”

“R-Richie? What the fuck are you doing?” Eddie stammered.

“Sleeping.” Richie said back firmly and that was all he said for the rest of the night.

Eddie didn’t know if Richie actually did end up sleeping but he knew he did.

And he had no more nightmares.

So that was something.

It was enough for then, anyway. That’s what Eddie was going to do. Take each day at a time. And he would be more than happy if Richie was at his side as he did it.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't go into IT expecting to fall in love with the kids and write fanfiction about them but I sure as hell left it expecting to. I wrote this in one sitting b/c I was inspired (!) so I hope you enjoy. Please leave a comment or kudos if you did. I will love them all!


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